Free public lecture: Bear Witness, art and hip-hop activist

Buoyed by a successful 2012-13 season, Concordia’s second annual Conversations in Contemporary Art series launches on Thursday, September 12, with a talk by Bear Witness — multimedia artist, hip-hop DJ, filmmaker and member of the Cayuga, from Six Nations of the Grand River.

Bear Witness remixes appropriated images and sound into video assemblages that explore stereotypical representations of Aboriginal people in North American media and pop culture. He re-edits the images, many of which are taken from Hollywood blockbusters, to create new narratives about his experiences as an urban indigenous artist.

Witness is also co-founder of A Tribe Called Red, whose album Nation II Nation recently swept the 2013 Aboriginal Peoples Choice Music Awards. The group has been nominated for this year’s Polaris Music Prize, the prestigious Canadian music honour.

Bear Witness is the first of a dozen prominent contemporary artists who will visit Concordia for the 2013-14 edition of the free, public Conversations series, held on Thursdays. The fall 2013 schedule includes:

• September 26: U.K.-based artist Christopher Kulendran Thomas, in conversation with writer/curator Helen Kaplinsky
• October 10: Renowned photographer and Concordia faculty member Chih-Chien Wang
• October 24: Installation/sculpture artist Stephen Schofield
• November 7: Azra Akšamija, Sarajevo born artist and architectural historian

A lecture on November 21 is also in the offing, and the winter lineup will soon be finalized.

Ingrid Bachmann, the series’ organizer and an associate professor in the Department of Studio Arts, says the public Conversations connect Concordia and its fine arts programs to local, national and international cultural circles.

“People are excited to come here and share their work with future generations of artists,” she says, adding that the university invites artists who take a fresh angle on contemporary artistic discourse. “We ask ourselves who will bring interesting social and activist ideas to the table.”

The work of visiting artists also aligns Concordia’s programs in both traditional and new-media disciplines.

What: Bear Witness: Conversations in Contemporary Art
When: Thursday, September 12, from 6 to 7:30 p.m.
Where: Visual Arts Building, Room VA-114, 1395 René-Lévesque Blvd. W., Sir George Williams Campus